Just one trophy in three seasons – how good a manager has Xavi been at Barcelona?

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Set to leave 

On Friday afternoon Barcelona confirmed that head coach Xavi would not be remaining at the club next season. In a statement on the club website, the LaLiga giants announced that club president Joan Laporta informed the 44-year-old manager that the club would be going in a different direction this summer and that a successor to the former midfielder would be confirmed in the coming days. Reports in Spain seem to suggest that former Germany and Bayern Munich head coach Hansi Flick has agreed to join the Camp Nou club in the summer. 

In the midst of an unprecedented financial crisis at the club, Xavi was hired in November 2021 with high hopes of returning the Catalan giants to their former glory with attacking football. However, the constraints placed on the club in the transfer market have severely hindered the manager domestically and in Europe too. Even with a win in their final clash against Sevilla, Xavi’s team are likely to finish the league season 12 points behind Real Madrid and well short of expectations. This now means that in three seasons, Xavi’s only success at Barcelona was the LaLiga title last season. And when we cast an eye over Xavi’s three seasons at the club, we can see that there has been very little for fans of the Spanish club to celerbate recently. 

Following Friday’s announcement, Xavi has now managed Barcelona in 141 games across all competitions and has an average points per game record of 2.06. And when we compare that to his predecessors in the role it offers some interesting results. For example, when we compare the 44-year-old tactician to every manager since Pep Guardiola – whilst excluding interim appointments like Jordi Roura and Sergi Barjuan – we find that Xavi currently has the second worst return of all seven coaches. However, if there is a positive way to spin such numbers, it would seem important to note that Xavi has at least improved on his immediate predecessor, Ronald Koeman, who sits bottom of the list with just 1.96 points per game. 

Indeed, contextualising Xavi’s spell at the club with the modern realities that face Barcelona are perhaps a more accurate way of figuring out how well the young manager has done in his first major role in European football. For example, the Catalan giants are under far greater financial restrictions than they were during Guardiola’s reign at the club or the riches his successors enjoyed in the years to follow. This is best illustrated by considering that the club’s net spend on transfer fees under each manager. Where Ernest Valverde was handed €285.9 million worth of players in transfer fees and Luis Enrique’s bill came to €188.5m in the transfer window, the club’s net spend on players during Xavi’s time at Camp Nou stands at a rather paltry €53.3m. 

As such, it seems unfair to compare Xavi to the managers that had come before him at Barcelona and in the years to come the young tactician may be seen as the ideal coach for this period in the club’s history. The Camp Nou club are nowhere near the peak of their powers, but for Xavi to have won one LaLiga title and come so close to a Champions League semi-final does suggest that he has done just about all that he could with the squad and financial limitations that he has been handed. Whether the man to replace him next season can improve on that remains to be seen.